What Next in Kathmandu?

It looks increasingly likely that the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) will form the next government with the support of the Nepal Congress Party. Am I alone in thinking that this is insanity? One of the reasons that the Maoists gained a plurality in last year’s election was disgust with the mainstream party’s opportunism. The political parties are again choosing narrow partisan interests over the interests of state formation. The exclusion of the Maoists will do little more than demonstrate the shallowness of the republican constitution and its institutions.

The UML and the NCP are myopic. Do they truly believe that they can retain power in while 19,000 former belligerents are confined to their cantonments and the party which a plurality of voters chose is excluded from power? How long before the constitution is swept aside by a coup?